A drug popular through the 1970s and only made illegal in the 1980s has been shown to be effective long-term in treating people with post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a study published Tuesday in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.

Army has doubled its number of behavioral health workers...Report details flaws in Army's handling of PTSD8 Mar.`13 &#8212; An Army report released Friday finds the service still has trouble diagnosing and treating soldiers for post-traumatic stress disorder, despite more than doubling its number of military and civilian behavioral health workers over the past five years.

Confusing paperwork, inconsistent training and guidelines, and incompatible data systems have hindered the service as it tries to deal with behavioral health issues, the report said. It's a crucial issue: After a decade of war, soldier suicides outpace combat deaths. Last May, the Army commissioned a task force to conduct a sweeping review of how it evaluates soldiers for mental health problems at all its facilities. The review came under pressure from Democratic Sen. Patty Murray, of Washington, who was upset to learn that hundreds of soldiers at Madigan Army Medical Center south of Seattle had had their PTSD diagnoses reversed by a forensic psychiatry team, resulting in a potential cut to their benefits and questions about whether the changes were made to save money.

About 150 of those soldiers eventually had their diagnoses restored. "I am pleased that the Army completed this review and has vowed to make fixes over the next year, though I am disappointed it has taken more than a decade of war to get to this point," Murray said in a statement. "Many of the 24 findings and 47 recommendations in this report are not new. Creating a universal electronic health record, providing better rural health access, and standardizing the way diagnoses are made, for instance, have been lingering problems for far too long. Our service members and their families deserve better."

The report noted that the Army had made strides in some areas, including cutting how long it takes soldiers to obtain a disability evaluation and publishing a guide to the process. The task force interviewed 750 people stationed around the globe, conducted listening sessions with 6,400 others and reviewed more than 140,000 records. The Army's Medical Command reviewed diagnoses for all soldiers evaluated for behavioral health problems from October 2001 until last April. Since September 2001, the report found, 4.1 percent of all soldiers deployed wound up with a behavioral health diagnosis such as PTSD or traumatic brain injury. Many can remain on active duty.

Nationwide, the report said, 6,400 soldiers had behavioral health diagnoses "adjusted" by medical evaluation boards, with approximately equal numbers having PTSD added as a diagnosis and removed as a diagnosis. Two locations where medical evaluation boards are held had slightly higher diagnosis changes than the Army-wide average, but the report did not identify them. Cases from those locations are being reviewed to ensure no soldiers were improperly affected, the report said. Last year the Army &#8212; and the military as a whole &#8212; suffered the highest number of suicides ever recorded, prompting then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to declare it an epidemic. The Army had 183 suicides among active-duty soldiers, up from 167 in 2011, and the military as a whole had 350 suicides, up from 301 the year before.

This Man Memorized Every Soldier Killed In Afghanistan For An Amazing TributeMar. 4, 2013, A man named Ron White is creating a memorial for all 2,200 U.S. military servicemembers killed in Afghanistan, writing their name and rank on a black wall &#8212; and he's doing it all by memory.

A Navy veteran of Afghanistan himself, White believes he's creating a memorial similar to the Vietnam Wall, for troops lost in Afghanistan. "I just set out to memorize all the names," White told ABC News. "The message I wanted to say is, you guys are not forgotten. I'm going to do my part to keep your memory alive, and so that is the message of the wall. You are not forgotten."

So last Thursday, White stood in front of a blank, black wall in Fort Worth, Texas, and began writing in white ink. The over 7,000 words took more than eight hours to complete. "I enjoyed watching him write the names," Marion Buckner, grandmother of PFC Austin Staggs, told ABC News. "It just gave me chills, really. You see how many families are affected."

White plans to continue traveling around the country and repeat his memorial wall, hoping to raise money for veterans charities such as the Wounded Warrior Project.

Good on him...Latest Medal of Honor recipient to focus on PTSDAugust 26, 2013 WASHINGTON  Army Staff Sgt. Ty Carter admitted to reporters that he was nervous.

He had just received the Medal of Honor from President Barack Obama for his courage under fire, for running into an exposed battlefield time and time again to rescue a fallen friend during the deadly Battle of Kamdesh in 2009. Hes one of only eight men to receive the award for exemplary heroism in the Afghanistan War. And hes nervous about carrying that honor. I stand here proud to represent the (many troops) faced with the impossible on Oct. 3, 2009, he said. Im nervous about living up to the responsibility of telling their story, with the honor and grace they deserve. Im also nervous about representing the 1.3 million men and women who serve our nation in the Army uniform.

On Monday, Obama lauded Carter as the finest example of the courage and sacrifice of the generation of troops who deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan over the last decade. Carter, a 33-year-old father of three, was among 53 U.S. soldiers involved in the daylong battle. Eight men were killed in the fight, a brutal assault launched from surrounding mountainsides.

As enemy forces breached the walls of Combat Outpost Keating, Carter and his fellow soldiers scrambled to hold their ground and recover their fallen friends. Carter was singled out for the award for his efforts to save Spc. Stephan Mace, who was mortally wounded and stranded in the kill zone before Carter selflessly sprinted to his position. I lost some of my hearing in that fight, Carter said, but Ill hear the voice of Mace, and his pleas for help, for the rest of my life.

Carter has spoken about the guilt he still feels for the men lost in the fight  Mace survived the battlefield, but died in surgery later that night. Obama tried to blunt that in his commendation of Carter. Because you helped turn back that attack, soldiers are alive today, the president said. Because you had the urge to serve others at whatever cost, so many Army families could welcome home their own sons. And because of you, Stephans mother Vanessa is able to say, Ty brought Stephan to safety.

Honored as a hero, Ty Carter looks to shift the spotlightAugust 25, 2013 > Humble hero uses Medal of Honor to raise awareness of the wounds of war

Ty Carter sat on the back of his camper, parked near a gas station in the remote Oregon woods, with his two dogs asleep and his kids arguing and his wife feeding the baby, waiting for a phone call he didnt really want to take. A colonel from the Pentagon had contacted him a week earlier, to ask whether he would be available that day for a call from a high-ranking military official. Carter said no. It would be in the middle of his family vacation  he had promised them a trip to Crater Lake. He sounded kind of exasperated, so I could tell that was the wrong answer, Carter said, laughing. He agreed to take a detour, to stay within cell-phone range a few hours longer.

When the call came, it was the commander-in-chief, who congratulated Carter on being chosen for the Medal of Honor. Sitting on the back bumper as the occasional car sped by, the soldier thanked him, traded stories about raising children, then got back in the car to continue the drive south. Thats how Army Staff Sgt. Ty Carter learned hed be recognized as one of Americas greatest heroes. Not from a lavish White House ceremony, which comes Monday. Not from a summons to the Pentagon, or even to his base commanders office. From a cell-phone call at a remote gas station  actually, across the street from the gas station because folks there were worried about him loitering so he had to move the camper.

Monday, Carter will become the fifth living Medal of Honor recipient for actions in Afghanistan. Only 12 men from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have been honored with the award, singled out for conspicuous gallantry and selfless courage on the battlefield. The common thread between the survivors stories has been their humility, even compared to the proud-without-boasting heroes of the past. All of them said they were just doing their job, that any other servicemember would have done the same, that they arent inherently different than any other American who joined the military. I am an American soldier, just like thousands who have served, will serve and are continuing to serve this great nation, he said at a news conference at his home base of Joint Base Lewis-McChord just days after the White House announcement. This award is not mine alone.

Carter, 33, has spent most of the last few weeks starkly recounting battlefield chaos to reporters while privately trying to explain what the battlefield was like to his 14-year-old son, Jayden. Madison, 8, was more interested in buying a new dress for the trip to Washington. With the Medal of Honor effectively making him undeployable  recipients have said Pentagon leaders are reluctant to send them back into harms way  he wants to continue his service in wounded warrior units, sharing his struggles with post-traumatic stress. Hes uncomfortable facing the families of the men who died fighting alongside him, freely admitting to a mix of guilt and post-traumatic stress whenever he speaks to them. We all did what we could to keep each other alive, he said.

PTSD may be a real condition or not. Psychiatrists and doctors make up medical conditions all the time. What PTSD has become is a very convenient excuse to be abusive and say it's not the fault of the abuser. It's the guy who wants to take his dog into the restaurant for a 20 minute breakfast and has to be accommodated. It's the one who beats his wife and blames PTSD. It's become the excuse dejour.

PTSD may be a real condition or not. Psychiatrists and doctors make up medical conditions all the time. What PTSD has become is a very convenient excuse to be abusive and say it's not the fault of the abuser. It's the guy who wants to take his dog into the restaurant for a 20 minute breakfast and has to be accommodated. It's the one who beats his wife and blames PTSD. It's become the excuse dejour.

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Combat Fatigue - as PTSD has been known for centuries! - is a very real and recognized malady which millions have suffered - from ALL nations.

Anyone, military or civilian, who has been through a seriously traumatic situation is prone to suffer it as it is recognized as a HEALTHY coping mechanism. Some make it through with little or no medical intervention while others need constant support and assistance.

There are many factors that cause the latter group to suffer more - probably the biggest is the lack of a support factor - not only in the present but the past. Those from single parent homes seem to suffer more than thos with a good family background.

Ecstasy shows promise for treating PTSD...In study, ecstasy shows promise for treating PTSDMay 6, 2014 A small but important study that has shown remarkable results using a combination of the drug MDMA - known on the street as ecstasy or "Molly" - and conventional therapy to treat post-traumatic stress disorder could be of significant value to thousands of veterans in Texas.

The South Carolina study, performed by Dr. Michael Mithoefer and his wife, Ann, under the auspices of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, or MAPS, involves the short-term use, under close psychiatric care, of the drug 3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamine, known medically as MDMA. If approved for psychiatric use, the treatment could offer relief for the thousands of PTSD sufferers in Houston and San Antonio, which have among the largest concentrations of veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars in the country. Of the 130,000 veterans registered in the Houston area, 9,695 have been treated for PTSD, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The study began in 2001 and is currently in its second phase. If a third phase is approved, the therapy almost certainly would be available in Texas in a few years. "For quite some time we've known the potential of MDMA to help with psychological problems," said Jane C. Maxwell, a senior research scientist in the school of social work at the University of Texas at Austin who studies MDMA, "We've begun to understand that some banned drugs may have special potential. I welcome the fact that we are able to go back and look at these drugs. This is a small study, but it has significant potential."

Aid for abuse victims

Most of the study's subjects were victims of child sexual abuse and rape who hadn't found relief through other therapies. They were given eight to 10 sessions of psychiatric counseling, and in two of the sessions were given a dose of MDMA. They were then allowed, of their own volition, to bring up the memories that had tormented them. In 83 percent of the 21 cases, according to Mithoefer, the subjects were found to be symptom-free for up to four years later. "It's tricky talking about a cure, but it is a sustained remission," said Mithoefer. Three subjects did suffer a relapse. In those cases, they were brought in for a "booster session" of MDMA and counseling, and they returned to a symptom-free state, said Mithoefer.

Mithoefer is now working with a second group of 24 patients who are veterans, firefighters and police officers with PTSD. Similar studies are underway in Israel, Canada, Switzerland and Colorado. Alex Vitek is a walking tale about why treatment of PTSD is so crucial. When he returned to Houston from a tour of duty as an Air Force medic in Afghanistan in 2007, he brought with him a severe case of PTSD. "To be honest, it turned my life upside down," Vitek said. He lost his wife and child and his career in the military. He fell into a deep hole of drugs and alcohol. Vitek said he tried suicide multiple times. "Left untreated, I would have landed six feet deep or in jail," Vitek said

Fortunately, he found Camp Hope, a local Christian-based residential program that uses more conventional treatment methods, such as 12-step programs, counseling and peer-mentoring. Vitek was able to stick with the program and later signed on as an intern at Camp Hope. Now he is on staff as a housing manager. He's a success story. Mithoefer does not discount other methods of treating post-traumatic stress. "They are helpful to some and not helpful to others," he said, which makes having a variety of methods important.

In addition to bearing all the responsibilities of soldiering, medics must calmly treat the devastating wounds of modern warfare: legs and arms mangled by roadside bombs, bodies peppered with shrapnel, arteries severed by high-velocity bullets. They are more exposed than other soldiers to seriously wounded or dead fellow servicemembers. Unlike hospital doctors or nurses, who rarely know their patients, medics have the added pressure of being close to the soldiers they are trying to keep alive. And when one dies, medics often face self-doubt — an emotion they must hide or risk losing the platoon’s confidence, said Sgt. Joshua Hetisimer, 33, a senior medic with the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, who has deployed three times.

It’s an awesome responsibility all medics embrace, said Sgt. Chad Howell, 29, of 557 Area Support Medical Company. “Guys get hurt on the battlefield,” he said, “they look to us, they scream your name.” Now, preliminary results from a study involving 800 medics — the first of its kind — suggest that medics suffer from higher rates of depression than other soldiers. Dr. Paula Chapman, a research health scientist at Tampa’s Veterans Administration hospital and the study’s lead investigator, said many of the medics talked about not being able to help when needed. “Is the depression tied to guilt-based issues?” said Chapman, who was an Army medic, now retired. “That we don’t know yet.”

Chapman’s preliminary findings showed medics were less likely than other soldiers to have symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. This could indicate that medics, whose mission is to heal, and who often choose their specialty, may be more resilient when it comes to combat stress, she said. But the study looked at medics only three months and 12 months after their deployments, and symptoms of PTSD can develop over time. “The next step is to look longitudinally at the combat medic, from training through post deployment,” Chapman said. Despite the study’s results, medics say they already know — or at least strongly suspect — that the unique stressors of their job can cause mental health problems later. “There is a heightened pressure for medics on the battlefield,” Howell said. “And PTSD is definitely one of the consequences of what we do.”

Sgt. Dallas Jones, of the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, who was in charge of 38 junior medics attached to various platoons in Afghanistan in 2007, said he made a point of checking on his medics weekly, just to talk and let them decompress. On his visits, he often brought along new medical gadgetry or comfort food, he said, and he joined them on patrols, or doubled with them on dangerous missions. “When you’re the medic, and the platoon loses a guy, yeah, it affects you,” Jones said. Hetisimer recalled the death of a friend, whose Humvee was struck by an improvised explosive device on a patrol in Ramadi, Iraq. Hetisimer saw him on the litter. “He was still alive,” he said, “but he knew, and we knew, what was going to happen.” Hetisimer and colleagues worked on him for 45 minutes. His friend died en route to the hospital.

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